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Creating a PHP application on Openshift

Saturday, June 8th, 2013

What is OpenShift? It is a cloud, it is from Red Hat. More precisely: A PaaS (Platform As A Service).

It is available since quite some time now and I finally found some time to test it. Conclusion: It is very simple to use. This will guide you how to create a PHP application which just prints “this is a test”. More to come in future postings.

The following steps are needed:

  • Create an account
  • Installing the CLI and setting up your environment
  • Create an application
  • Initialize a git repository
  • Put some content into your git repository
  • Push/publish your application

It is a good idea to start reading https://www.openshift.com/get-started”.

Create an account
Simply head to https://openshift.redhat.com/app/account/new and fill in the form. The captcha can be a hassle, you may need to try reading it correctly several times.

Setting up your environment
before being able to use your account, you need to install and set up some software on your developer workstation. Of course you also can go for the “Wimp Way” and using the web-UI, but real men use the CLI for higher productivity.

The following steps I used on my Fedora 18 box:

f18:~# yum install rubygems git

Next, install the CLI tool. The simplest way to do so is using gem.

f18:~# gem install rhc
Fetching: net-ssh-2.6.7.gem (100%)
Fetching: archive-tar-minitar-0.5.2.gem (100%)
Fetching: highline-1.6.19.gem (100%)
Fetching: commander-4.1.3.gem (100%)
Fetching: httpclient-2.3.3.gem (100%)
Fetching: open4-1.3.0.gem (100%)
Fetching: rhc-1.9.6.gem (100%)
===========================================================================

If this is your first time installing the RHC tools, please run 'rhc setup'

===========================================================================
Successfully installed net-ssh-2.6.7
Successfully installed archive-tar-minitar-0.5.2
Successfully installed highline-1.6.19
Successfully installed commander-4.1.3
Successfully installed httpclient-2.3.3
Successfully installed open4-1.3.0
Successfully installed rhc-1.9.6
7 gems installed
Installing ri documentation for net-ssh-2.6.7...
Installing ri documentation for archive-tar-minitar-0.5.2...
Installing ri documentation for highline-1.6.19...
Installing ri documentation for commander-4.1.3...
Installing ri documentation for httpclient-2.3.3...
Installing ri documentation for open4-1.3.0...
Installing ri documentation for rhc-1.9.6...
Installing RDoc documentation for net-ssh-2.6.7...
Installing RDoc documentation for archive-tar-minitar-0.5.2...
Installing RDoc documentation for highline-1.6.19...
Installing RDoc documentation for commander-4.1.3...
Installing RDoc documentation for httpclient-2.3.3...
Installing RDoc documentation for open4-1.3.0...
Installing RDoc documentation for rhc-1.9.6...

Just to be sure there are not updates available:

f18:~# gem update rhc
Updating installed gems
Nothing to update

Next on the list is to set up your credentials and evironment. It is wizard style and will guide you trough the process. 

[luc@f18 ~]$ rhc setup
OpenShift Client Tools (RHC) Setup Wizard

This wizard will help you upload your SSH keys, set your application namespace, and check that other programs like Git are properly
installed.

Login to openshift.redhat.com: your-account@example.com
Password: **********


OpenShift can create and store a token on disk which allows to you to access the server without using your password. The key is stored
in your home directory and should be kept secret.  You can delete the key at any time by running 'rhc logout'.
Generate a token now? (yes|no) yes
Generating an authorization token for this client ... lasts about 1 day

Saving configuration to /home/luc/.openshift/express.conf ... done

Your public SSH key must be uploaded to the OpenShift server to access code.  Upload now? (yes|no) yes

Since you do not have any keys associated with your OpenShift account, your new key will be uploaded as the 'default' key.

Uploading key 'default' ... done

Checking for git ... found git version 1.8.1.4

Checking common problems .. done

Checking your namespace ... none

Your namespace is unique to your account and is the suffix of the public URLs we assign to your applications. You may configure your
namespace here or leave it blank and use 'rhc create-domain' to create a namespace later.  You will not be able to create applications
without first creating a namespace.

Please enter a namespace (letters and numbers only) ||: ldelouw
Your domain name 'ldelouw' has been successfully created

Checking for applications ... none

Run 'rhc create-app' to create your first application.
[..]
Your client tools are now configured.

Create an application
Now as your environment is nearly finished setting up you can create your application instance on OpenShift.

[luc@f18 ~]$ rhc create-app test zend-5.6
Application Options
-------------------
  Namespace:  ldelouw
  Cartridges: zend-5.6
  Gear Size:  default
  Scaling:    no

Creating application 'test' ... done

Waiting for your DNS name to be available ... done

Downloading the application Git repository ...
Cloning into 'test'...
The authenticity of host 'test-ldelouw.rhcloud.com ()' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is a-finger-print.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'test-ldelouw.rhcloud.com' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.

Your application code is now in 'test'

test @ http://test-ldelouw.rhcloud.com/ (uuid: a-uuid)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Created: 5:22 PM
  Gears:   1 (defaults to small)
  Git URL: ssh://a-uuid@test-ldelouw.rhcloud.com/~/git/test.git/
  SSH:     a-uuid@test-ldelouw.rhcloud.com

  zend-5.6 (Zend Server 5.6)
  --------------------------
    Gears: 1 small

RESULT:
Application test was created.
Note: You should set password for the Zend Server Console at: https://test-ldelouw.rhcloud.com/ZendServer
Zend Server 5.6 started successfully

As mentioned in the output, you shoud proceed to https://yourapp-yourdomain.rhcloud.com/ZendServer

Initialize a git repository

This is not very clear in Red Hats documentation. When creating an application on OpenShift, a git repository is created to you. In order to push your app, you need to clone that repository locally or adding an upstream git master. Lets do it locally for now:

[luc@f18 ~]$ cd ~/your-project-directory

[luc@f18 your-project-directory]$ git clone ssh://a-uuid@test-ldelouw.rhcloud.com/~/git/test.git/
Cloning into 'test'...
remote: Counting objects: 26, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (20/20), done.
remote: Total 26 (delta 2), reused 20 (delta 0)
Receiving objects: 100% (26/26), 6.99 KiB, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (2/2), done.

Put some content into your git repository
What a git repository and an application instance without some content? Nothing, so lets change that.

[luc@f18 your-project-directory]$ cat <<EOF>test/php/test.php
<?php
print "this is a test";
?>
EOF

Adding your project file to the git repository:

git add test.php

Commit it:

git commit

And push it:

[luc@f18 your-project-directory]$ git push
Counting objects: 6, done.
Delta compression using up to 8 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (3/3), done.
Writing objects: 100% (4/4), 398 bytes, done.
Total 4 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0)
remote: CLIENT_MESSAGE: Stopping Zend Server Console
remote: Stopping Zend Server GUI [Lighttpd] [OK]
remote: CLIENT_MESSAGE: Stopping Zend Server JobQueue daemon
remote: Stopping JobQueue [OK]
remote: CLIENT_MESSAGE: Stopping Apache
remote: CLIENT_MESSAGE: Stopping Zend Server Monitor node
remote: Stopping Zend Server Monitor node [OK]
remote: CLIENT_MESSAGE: Stopping Zend Server Deployment daemon
remote: Stopping Deployment [OK]
remote: CLIENT_RESULT: Zend Server 5.6 stopped successfully
remote: TODO
remote: CLIENT_MESSAGE: Starting Zend Server Deployment daemon
remote: Starting Deployment [OK]
remote: [08.06.2013 11:36:30 SYSTEM] watchdog for zdd is running. 
remote: [08.06.2013 11:36:30 SYSTEM] zdd is running. 
remote: CLIENT_MESSAGE: Starting Zend Server Monitor node
remote: Starting Zend Server Monitor node [OK]
remote: [08.06.2013 11:36:31 SYSTEM] watchdog for monitor is running. 
remote: [08.06.2013 11:36:31 SYSTEM] monitor is running. 
remote: CLIENT_MESSAGE: Starting Apache
remote: CLIENT_MESSAGE: Starting Zend Server JobQueue daemon
remote: Starting JobQueue [OK]
remote: [08.06.2013 11:36:34 SYSTEM] watchdog for jqd is running. 
remote: [08.06.2013 11:36:34 SYSTEM] jqd is running. 
remote: CLIENT_MESSAGE: Starting Zend Server Console
remote: spawn-fcgi: child spawned successfully: PID: 1433
remote: Starting Zend Server GUI [Lighttpd] [OK]
remote: [08.06.2013 11:36:36 SYSTEM] watchdog for lighttpd is running. 
remote: [08.06.2013 11:36:36 SYSTEM] lighttpd is running. 
remote: CLIENT_RESULT: Zend Server 5.6 started successfully
To ssh://a-uuid@test-ldelouw.rhcloud.com/~/git/test.git/
   xxxxx..yyyy  master -> master
[luc@f18 your-project-directory]$

Did it all worked?

Lets try…

[luc@bond test]$ wget --quiet http://test-ldelouw.rhcloud.com/test.php -O -|grep test
this is a test
[luc@bond test]$

Yes!

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Posted in Fedora, Linux, Red Hat, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Host based access control with IPA

Saturday, March 2nd, 2013

Host based access control is easy with IPA/FreeIPA, very easy.

Lets assume you want to have a host group called rhel-prod, a usergroup called prod-admins and you want to let them access the servers in the rhel-prod group by ssh from any host that can reach the servers. Lets call the HBAC rule prod-admins.

You can either user the web GUI or use the command line interface.

Lets create the user group:

[root@ipa1 ~]# ipa group-add prod-admins --desc="Production System Admins"
-------------------------
Added group "prod-admins"
-------------------------
  Group name: prod-admins
  Description: Production System Admins
  GID: 1222000004
[root@ipa1 ~]#

Add some users to the user group:

[root@ipa1 ~]# ipa group-add-member prod-admins --users=luc,htester
  Group name: prod-admins
  Description: Production System Admins
  GID: 1222000004
  Member users: luc, htester
-------------------------
Number of members added 2
-------------------------
[root@ipa1 ~]#

And the hostgroup

[root@ipa1 ~]# ipa hostgroup-add rhel-prod --desc "Production Servers"
---------------------------
Added hostgroup "rhel-prod"
---------------------------
  Host-group: rhel-prod
  Description: Production Servers
[root@ipa1 ~]#

Add some servers as members of the host group

[root@ipa1 ~]# ipa hostgroup-add-member rhel-prod --hosts=ipaclient1.example.com,ipaclient2.example.com
  Host-group: rhel-prod
  Description: Production Servers
  Member hosts: ipaclient1.example.com, ipaclient2.example.com
-------------------------
Number of members added 2
-------------------------
[root@ipa1 ~]#

Note: the servers are comma separated, without a space after the comma

Lets define the HBAC rule:

[root@ipa1 ~]# ipa hbacrule-add --srchostcat=all prod-admins
-----------------------------
Added HBAC rule "prod-admins"
-----------------------------
  Rule name: prod-admins
  Source host category: all
  Enabled: TRUE
[root@ipa1 ~]#

Add the user group to the rule:

[root@ipa1 ~]# ipa hbacrule-add-user --groups prod-admins prod-admins
  Rule name: prod-admins
  Source host category: all
  Enabled: TRUE
  User Groups: prod-admins
-------------------------
Number of members added 1
-------------------------
[root@ipa1 ~]#

Add the service to the rule:

[root@ipa1 ~]# ipa hbacrule-add-service --hbacsvcs sshd prod-admins
  Rule name: prod-admins
  Source host category: all
  Enabled: TRUE
  User Groups: prod-admins
  Services: sshd
-------------------------
Number of members added 1
-------------------------
[root@ipa1 ~]#

And finally add the host group to the rule

[root@ipa1 ~]# ipa hbacrule-add-host --hostgroups rhel-prod prod-admins
  Rule name: prod-admins
  Source host category: all
  Enabled: TRUE
  User Groups: prod-admins
  Host Groups: rhel-prod
  Services: sshd
-------------------------
Number of members added 1
-------------------------
[root@ipa1 ~]#

Of course you can enhance the rule by adding other services or restrict the access from particular hosts and so on.

Have fun :-)

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Fedora, Linux, Red Hat | 4 Comments »

Automated disk partitioning on virtual machines with Cobbler

Saturday, December 15th, 2012

The default Cobbler Snippets just do simple auto partitioning. For a more sophisticated partition layout you need to know what kind of VM you are going to install. KVMs and RHEVs device name is /dev/vda, Xen uses /dev/xvda and ESX /dev/sda.

Luckily this can be figured out automatically, those different virtualization vendors are using its own MAC prefixes. So we can add two nice small Cobbler snippets to do the job. In this example, I call them hw-detect and partitioning.

hw-detect

#set $mac = $getVar('$mac_address_eth0')
#if $mac
#set $mac_prefix = $mac[0:8]
#if $mac_prefix == "00:1a:4a"
# This is a RHEV virtual machine
#set global $machinetype = 'kvm'

#else if $mac_prefix == "52:54:00"
# This is a KVM/Qemu virtual machine
#set global $machinetype='kvm'

#else if $mac_prefix == "00:16:3e"
# This is a XEN virtual machine
#set global $machinetype='xen'
#
#else if $mac_prefix == "00:50:56"
# This is a ESX virtual machine
#set global $machinetype = 'esx'

#else
# #This is a physical machine
#set global $machinetype = 'physical'
#end if
#end if

partitioning

#if $machinetype == 'kvm'
#set $disk='vda'
#else if $machinetype == 'xen'
#set $disk = 'xvda'
#else
#set $disk = 'sda'
#end if
# Lets install the system on /dev/$disk
part /boot      --fstype ext2 --size=250 --ondisk=$disk
part pv.0       --size=1 --grow --ondisk=$disk

volgroup vg_${name} pv.0

logvol /        --fstype ext4 --name=lv_root    --vgname=vg_${name} --size=4096
logvol /home    --fstype ext4 --name=lv_home    --vgname=vg_${name} --size=512 --fsoption=nosuid,nodev,noexec
logvol /tmp     --fstype ext4 --name=lv_tmp    --vgname=vg_${name} --size=1024 --fsoption=nosuid,nodev,noexec
logvol /var     --fstype ext4 --name=lv_var    --vgname=vg_${name} --size=2048 --fsoption=nosuid,nodev,noexec
logvol swap     --fstype swap --name=lv_swap    --vgname=vg_${name} --size=2048

An additional “feature” of the partitioning Snippet is: It sets up the Volume Group name according to your systems name. This is the unofficial standard since quite some time. It also sets some more secure mount options. Review them carefully if they make sense for you and edit them as needed.

The next step is to configure your kickstart template.

Standalone Cobbler
On a standalone Cobbler server edit /var/lib/cobbler/kickstart/your-kick-start-template.ks

# Detect the used hardware type
$SNIPPET('hw-detect')
# Set up default partitioning
$SNIPPET('partitioning')

Bundled Cobbler
When using cobbler bundled with Spacewalk or Red Hat Satellite, you need to edit the Kickstart profile in the WebUI.


Navigate to Systems -> Kickstart -> Profile. Select the Kickstart profile to be modified -> System Details -> Partitioning.

Copy the two Snippets in /var/lib/cobbler/spacewalk/1, where 1 is representing your OrgId.

Alternatively you can edit them in the WebUI as well.

To check if all is working as expected, add a system to Cobbler using the Command Line Interface and have a look to the rendered Kickstart file. This can be easily done with cobbler system getks --name=blah.

Happy System installing….

Have fun :-)

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Posted in Fedora, Linux, Red Hat, Virtualization | 2 Comments »

RHEV 3.1 – an overview about the new features

Sunday, December 9th, 2012
RHEV-M

RHEV-M

Recently Red Hat announced the public availability of RHEV 3.1.

Finally, no more Windows needed for the whole software stack :-)

In 3.0, the new webadmin interface was already inncluded, as a tech preview and had its problems. Now with 3.1 its working great and looks neat. In contrary to 3.0, it is now listening on the standard ports 80 and 443. This will probably help users in organizations with strict proxy policies and setting.

So what else is new?

The supported number of virtual CPUs in a guest is now ridiculous 160, and RAM per guest is at ridiculous two Terabytes. But this are the least import updates.

Especially on the storage side, a lot of effort has been done and long missing features integrated.

From my point of view, the most important new feature is the possibility to have disks from more than one Storage Domain attached to a virtual machine. This would allow to install the Operating system to cheap SATA storage while data disks are super fast SSDs.

There is also support for live snapshots, but snapshots are (as on other platforms) kind of problematic because they are COW (Copy-On-Write). This can lead to I/O performance problems. Snapshots are a cool feature for i.e. taking a snapshot before updating software etc. Be sure you remove the snapshot afterwards if you want to keep a good I/O performance.

You now can use DirectLUN directly from the GUI without the usage of hooks. DirectLUN allows to attach FibreChannel and iSCSI LUNs directly to a Virtual Machine. This is great when you want to use shared filesystems such as GFS.

Another nice feature is Live Storage Migration which is a technical preview, means: Unsupported for the moment. It probably will be supported in a later version. Storage live migration is a nice feature when you need to free up some space on a storage domain and you can not shut down a VM. Be sure to power-cycle the VM in question as soon as your SLA allows it, to get rid of the Snapshot (COW here again).

If you want to script stuff or you are too lazy to open a brower, there is now a CLI available. Have a look to the documentation.

If you want to integrate RHEV deeper into your existing infrastructure, such as RHN Satellite, Cobbler, Your-super-duper-CMDB or IaaS/PaaS broker, there are two different APIs available. For the XML lovers, there is the previously known RestAPI which has some performance improvements. For the XML haters, there is now a native Python API which allows to to access RHEV entities directly as objects in your Python code. For both APIs, have a look to the Documentation.

I personally like the Python API, because a lot of other Red Hat infrastructure products come with Python APIs. So it is very easy to integrate those software pieces.

Under the hood, it is now powered by JBoss EAP6 instead of version 5. To be able to connect to standard ports 80 and 443, there is an Apache httpd with mod_proxy_ajp.

Have fun :-)

Tags: , ,
Posted in Linux, Red Hat, Uncategorized, Virtualization | 1 Comment »

How to recover from a lost Kerberos password for admin

Saturday, December 8th, 2012

Ever lost your password for the admin principle on your Linux Kerberos server? It is quite easy to recover by just setting a new one.

You just need to log in to your KDC and proceed as follows:

[root@ipa1 ~]# kadmin.local
Authenticating as principal admin/admin@EXAMPLE.COM with password.
kadmin.local:  change_password admin@EXAMPLE.COM
Enter password for principal "admin@EXAMPLE.COM": 
Re-enter password for principal "admin@EXAMPLE.COM": 
Password for "admin@EXAMPLE.COM" changed.
kadmin.local: q
[root@ipa1 ~]#

Now enter kinit to get a Kerberos ticket.

Have fun :-)

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Fedora, Linux, Red Hat, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Migrating from CentOS6 to RHEL6

Saturday, December 8th, 2012

There are different tutorial on the net how to migrate from RHEL to CentOS but almost no information about the other way round. It is quite simple and at the end of the day you have only Red Hat Packages installed.

you need to copy the following packages from a Red Hat medium and install them:

yum localinstall \
rhn-check-1.0.0-87.el6.noarch.rpm \
rhn-client-tools-1.0.0-87.el6.noarch.rpm \
rhnlib-2.5.22-12.el6.noarch.rpm \
rhnsd-4.9.3-2.el6.x86_64.rpm \
rhn-setup-1.0.0-87.el6.noarch.rpm \
yum-3.2.29-30.el6.noarch.rpm \
yum-metadata-parser-1.1.2-16.el6.x86_64.rpm \
yum-rhn-plugin-0.9.1-40.el6.noarch.rpm \
yum-utils-1.1.30-14.el6.noarch.rpm \
sos-2.2-29.el6.noarch.rpm \

Then you need to remove the centos release package and install the Red Hat release package:

rpm -e centos-release-6-3.el6.centos.9.x86_64 --nodeps
yum localinstall redhat-release-server-6Server-6.3.0.3.el6.x86_64.rpm

Now it is time to register your system at RHN with rhn_register

After the successful registration you need to replace all CentOS packages by the RPMs provided by Red Hat:

yum reinstall "*"

To be sure there are no new configuration files to take care of run the following:

yum install mlocate.x86_64
updatedb
locate rpmnew

Go through the list and check if there is some configuration work to do

Update your machine to the latest and greatest versions of packages and reboot your machine

yum -y update && reboot

Query the RPM database for leftovers from CentOS:

rpm -qa --queryformat "%{NAME} %{VENDOR}\n" | grep -i centos | cut -d' ' -f1

There are some problematic packages which has “centos” in its name, i.e yum and dhcp

rpm -e yum --nodeps
rpm -ihv yum-3.2.29-30.el6.noarch.rpm

At the end, you have the previously installed kernel packages left. Keep them as a backup, they will be automatically uninstalled after two more kernel updates.

Is the procedure supported by Red Hat? No it is not supported.

Will the converted machine be supported after this procedure? Well, officially it is not supported, but if there are no traces of CentOS on the machine…

Have fun :-)

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Posted in Fedora, Linux, Red Hat, Uncategorized | Comments Off

Kernel 3.5.3 partially broken for virtualization

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012

Some time ago, Fedora 17 got a Kernel update to 3.5.3-1. Since then, PXE booting virtual machines does not work anymore. It seems that it has not been fixed in the upstream Kernel, but only the 3.5 series of Kernels is affected.

A bug has been filed, but no fix is available. The only solution for now is to stick to Kernel 3.4.5-2. I’ve checked the Fedora annouce mailinglist, looks like there have been no grave bugfixes since then.

The bug only hits when you use PXE boot virtual machines with qemu-kvm. The virtual machine gets just paused, to find out the reason for it, you need to have a closer look to /var/log/libvirt/libvirtd.log. There you can read: “KVM: entry failed, hardware error 0x80000021“.

Someone proposed to use the emulate_invalid_guest_state=y parameter to the kvm_intel module, but according to a Ubuntu bugreport it fails too, but differently.

Hopefully a bug fix will be made available soon.

Having fun? Well, could be worse, could be better.

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Posted in Fedora, Linux, Virtualization | Comments Off

Upgrading RHN Satellite 5.4.1 to 5.5

Sunday, September 23rd, 2012

Red Hat has released RHN Satellite version 5.5. It is a release that is mainly a bug-fix release, but has some interesting new features as well. Here comes a brief guide how to update your RHN Satellite to the latest version. It is not a official guide, so if you trash your Satellite, it is not my fault…

Preparation
As always, before you upgrade the RHN Satellite, you need to order a new certificate. Open a Support case at Red Hat and tell them you need a new certificate for Version .5.5.

You also need to download the ISO file for the upgrade as the packages are only available in the software channel after the upgrade and activation. You can download the ISO at Red Hats download site. Of course you need to choose the architecture that matches your environment. Note that there is only one ISO available for each architecture, not two as it was before. The ISO comes with the embedded database. If you need to use an external database, use the --external-db parameter with install.pl

Ensure you have a working backup of your database before starting with the upgrade. Do this as follows:

su - oracle
db-control backup /your/back/up/directory
db-control verify /your/back/up/directory

A backup of your /etc/rhn directory is also a good idea, just for the case something is going wrong: cp -rp /etc/rhn /etc/rhn-$(date +"%F")

Ensure your database has enough free table space left. For the DATA_TBS and the UNDO_TBS it should be at least 1Gbyte, better are 2Gbyte. The following example shows an example:

[root@rhns ~]# su - oracle
-bash-4.1$ db-control report
Tablespace                  Size    Used   Avail   Use%
DATA_TBS                   16.1G   12.6G    3.5G    78%
SYSAUX                      500M  182.6M  317.3M    37%
SYSTEM                      400M  254.1M  145.8M    64%
TEMP_TBS                   1000M      0B   1000M     0%
UNDO_TBS                    3.9G  474.7M    3.4G    12%
USERS                       128M     64K  127.9M     0%
-bash-4.1$

You can grow the table spaces if needed by fire db-control extend UNDO_TBS.

It is also very important to have enoght free space in the /rhnsat filesystem, db-control gather-stats needs some extra space. At least 2 Gbyte to be on the safe side.

Having a look to the official upgrade guide is strongly recommended.

First you need to loop-back mount the ISO image and cd into the mountpoint:

[root@rhns ~]# mount satellite-5.5.0-20120911-rhel-6-x86_64.iso /mnt -o loop
[root@rhns ~]# cd /mnt
[root@rhns mnt]#

Next step is to install the rhn-upgrade package.

[root@rhns mnt]# yum -y install rhn-upgrade
Loaded plugins: product-id, rhnplugin, subscription-manager
Updating certificate-based repositories.
Unable to read consumer identity
Setting up Install Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package rhn-upgrade.noarch 0:5.5.0.16-1.el6sat will be installed
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

=====================================================================================================
 Package         Arch       Version               Repository                                    Size
=====================================================================================================
Installing:
 rhn-upgrade     noarch     5.5.0.16-1.el6sat     redhat-rhn-satellite-5.4-server-x86_64-6      38 k

Transaction Summary
=====================================================================================================
Install       1 Package(s)

Total download size: 38 k
Installed size: 0  
Downloading Packages:
rhn-upgrade-5.5.0.16-1.el6sat.noarch.rpm                                      |  38 kB     00:00     
Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
  Installing : rhn-upgrade-5.5.0.16-1.el6sat.noarch                                              1/1 
Installed products updated.
  Verifying  : rhn-upgrade-5.5.0.16-1.el6sat.noarch                                              1/1 

Installed:
  rhn-upgrade.noarch 0:5.5.0.16-1.el6sat                                                             

Complete!
[root@rhns mnt]#

The package contains documents and scripts to help you with the upgrade. They are located in the directory /etc/sysconfig/rhn/satellite-upgrade. Read those documents carefully before proceeding with the upgrade.

Upgrading
Lets do it… run the installer script with the --upgrade parameter, bold red letters are interactive input.

[root@rhns mnt]# ./install.pl --upgrade
* Starting the Red Hat Network Satellite installer.
* Performing pre-install checks.
* Pre-install checks complete.  Beginning installation.
* RHN Registration.
** Registration: System is already registered with RHN.  Not re-registering.
* Upgrade flag passed.  Stopping necessary services.
* Purging conflicting packages.
* Checking for uninstalled prerequisites.
** Checking if yum is available ...
There are some packages from Red Hat Enterprise Linux that are not part
of the @base group that Satellite will require to be installed on this
system. The installer will try resolve the dependencies automatically.
However, you may want to install these prerequisites manually.
Do you want the installer to resolve dependencies [y/N]? y
* Applying updates.
* Installing RHN packages.
Warning: yum did not install the following packages:
	geronimo-specs-compat
* Now running spacewalk-setup.
* Setting up Oracle environment.
* Setting up database.
** Database: Upgrading the database server to latest Oracle 10g:
** Database: This is a long process that is logged in:
** Database: /var/log/rhn/upgrade_db.log
*** Progress: ##############################################################
** Database: Setting up database connection for Oracle backend.
** Database: Testing database connection.
** Database: Populating database.
** Database: Skipping database population.
* Setting up users and groups.
** GPG: Initializing GPG and importing key.
* Performing initial configuration.
* Activating RHN Satellite.
** Certificate not activated.
** Upgrade process requires the certificate to be activated after the schema is upgraded.
* Enabling Monitoring.
* Configuring apache SSL virtual host.
Should setup configure apache's default ssl server for you (saves original ssl.conf) [Y]? y
* Configuring tomcat.
** /etc/tomcat6/tomcat6.conf has been backed up to tomcat6.conf-swsave
** /etc/tomcat6/server.xml has been backed up to server.xml-swsave
Reversed (or previously applied) patch detected!  Skipping patch.
1 out of 1 hunk ignored -- saving rejects to file web.xml.rej
* Configuring jabberd.
* Creating SSL certificates.
** Skipping SSL certificate generation.
* Deploying configuration files.
* Update configuration in database.
* Setting up Cobbler..
cobblerd does not appear to be running/accessible
Cobbler requires tftp and xinetd services be turned on for PXE provisioning functionality. Enable these services [Y]? y
cobblerd does not appear to be running/accessible
This portion of the RHN Satellite upgrade process has successfully completed.
Please refer to appropriate upgrade document in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/satellite-upgrade
for any remaining steps in the process.
[root@rhns mnt]#

Now some database actions are needed. Make sure your Satellite is stopped and only the database is running:

rhn-satellite stop
service oracle start

You need to create schema statistics:

su - oracle
-bash-4.1$ db-control gather-stats
Gathering statistics...
WARNING: this may be a very slow process.
done.
-bash-4.1$

Now it is time to upgrade the database schema

[root@rhns mnt]# spacewalk-schema-upgrade
Schema upgrade: [satellite-schema-5.4.0.19-1.el6sat] -> [satellite-schema-5.5.0.13-1.el6sat]
Searching for upgrade path: [satellite-schema-5.4.0.19-1] -> [satellite-schema-5.5.0.13-1]
Searching for upgrade path: [satellite-schema-5.4.0.19] -> [satellite-schema-5.5.0.13]
Searching for upgrade path: [satellite-schema-5.4.0] -> [satellite-schema-5.5.0]
Searching for upgrade path: [satellite-schema-5.4] -> [satellite-schema-5.5]
The path: [satellite-schema-5.4] -> [satellite-schema-5.5]
Planning to run spacewalk-sql with [/var/log/spacewalk/schema-upgrade/20120922-132500-script.sql]
Hit Enter to continue or Ctrl+C to interrupt: Enter
Executing spacewalk-sql, the log is in [/var/log/spacewalk/schema-upgrade/20120922-132500-to-satellite-schema-5.5.log].
The database schema was upgraded to version [satellite-schema-5.5.0.13-1.el6sat].
[root@rhns mnt]#

Now it is time to activate your RHN Satellite to be able to receive updates for the Satellite and running satellite-sync

[root@rhns ~]# rhn-satellite-activate --ignore-version-mismatch --rhn-cert=/root/rhns-cert55.cert 
RHN_PARENT: satellite.rhn.redhat.com
[root@rhns ~]#

To rebuild the search index please run service rhn-search cleanindex

[root@rhns ~]# service rhn-search cleanindex
Stopping rhn-search...
rhn-search was not running.
Starting rhn-search...
[root@rhns ~]#

Before restarting the RHN Satellite, check if any updates are available for it.
yum -y update

Afterward, please check if there is another database schema update available. If the output looks as following, you are safe.

[root@rhns ~]# spacewalk-schema-upgrade
Schema upgrade: [satellite-schema-5.5.0.13-1.el6sat] -> [satellite-schema-5.5.0.13-1.el6sat]
Your database schema already matches the schema package version [satellite-schema-5.5.0.13-1.el6sat].
[root@rhns ~]#

As a verification that the upgrade is fine, run a satellite-sync to sync some new content and update a registered server. If you have more than one Satellite, run a ISS (Inter Satellite Sync) for proofing its functionality.

Troubleshooting
If something goes wrong with the database update, before reverting to a backup, first check the Oracle alert file /rhnsat/admin/rhnsat/bdump/alert_rhnsat.log to figure out what went wrong. Another good place to have a look at are the trace files located in /rhnsat/admin/rhnsat/udump

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Posted in Linux, Red Hat | 2 Comments »

How to get a RTL2832U based DVB-T stick working on Fedora 17

Sunday, September 16th, 2012

This week I bought a no-name DVB-T stick with the risk to not getting it working with Linux. The device contains a RTL2832u chip which seems to be quite common according to this list. The price tag was just €14, so I was taking the risk.

First experiments shown that there is no chance to get it running on Fedora 17. After digging deeper I figured out that someone wrote a driver and published it on github.

Later on, I figured out that there is a driver also available in upstreams 3.6rc Kernel. Unfortunately the Kernel shipped with Fedora 17 does not support the device yet.

Steps to do

Ensure you have installed the kernel headers package that match your running kernel version. If not, run yum -y install kernel-headers. The package dvb-apps will help you to set up the channels later on, install it with yum -y install dvb-apps

Getting and compiling the kernel module

git clone https://github.com/tmair/DVB-Realtek-RTL2832U-2.2.2-10tuner-mod_kernel-3.0.0.git
cd DVB-Realtek-RTL2832U-2.2.2-10tuner-mod_kernel-3.0.0/RTL2832-2.2.2_kernel-3.0.0/
make && make install

Afterwards you need to scan your DVB-T stick for stations and put it into mplayers channels file. In /usr/share/dvb/dvb-t/ you will find the right setting the region you are living. For me de-Berlin is the right one.

scandvb /usr/share/dvb/dvb-t/de-Berlin -o zap >> ~/.mplayer/channels.conf

Now you are ready to watch digital terrestrial TV on you Fedora box. mplayer "dvb://Das Erste" does the job.

A more comfortable player is kaffeine which has features like EPG (electronic Program Guide), recording facilities etc. It comes with KDE.

Have fun!

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Posted in Fedora, Linux, Uncategorized | 10 Comments »

How to transfer files to the Google Nexus 7

Sunday, September 9th, 2012

It looks like a silly question, but it is not. The device does not support USB Mass storage, but some stuff called MTP. Unfortunately it does not work as expected with Linux.

The first try was to yum -y install libmtp.x86_64 libmtp-examples.x86_64 and mount the device with fuse: mtpfs /mnt. However, it seems it is not mature enough yet to use it.

If you just want to put some sound files on to your device, Amarok works pretty fine. But what if you want to put some i.e Movies on your device?

The only quick solution I figured out was to use adb with comes with the Android SDK. As root do the following:

yum -y install android-tools.x86_64
adb start-server
for i in /home/user/Movies/*; do
  adb push $i /sdcard/Movies
done

As you can read on the Wikipedia Article about Media Transfer Protocol it is a standard described by Microsoft and originally designed for managing photographs on cameras.

The idea behind it is that every operating system comes with its own file system(s) and when using USB Mass Storage, the common filesystem is FAT32. As you may know, FAT32 has some limitations. Unfortunately there is no other common file system available.

In the case of Linux users, it would be perfect to have USB Mass Storage support, because the file system used is ext4, also on the pseudo sdcard storage built in into the device.

The “successor” of FAT is called exFAT and is Microsoft proprietary and thus out of question for the next 20 years (Software Patents). There, the standardization organisation have completely failed to establish a free and open standard as a common file system suited for applications such as USB-Sticks, Smart Phones and others.

I have no clue how many software patents are related to MTP. I hope there are not any at all, so every operating system vendor can implement it as it seems to get the standard for such devices. Currently, the only “native” support for MTP comes with Windows Media Player. There is some software available for MacOS X provided by Google, and the FUSE implementation for Linux which I call experimental.

I’m sure someone would now bring in the argument that sound and movies can be accessed from the “cloud”. Well sure, but UMTS is too slow and too expensive for HD-Movies, WLAN is – at least in Europeen Hotels – even more expensive. The only way to store media is locally, at least for nomads like me.

Having fun? Not really…

Tags:
Posted in Fedora, Linux | 5 Comments »

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